WARRINGTON MAN WITH LINKS TO CHILDREN'S CHARITY SENTENCED FOR CHILD ABUSE IMAGES AND ONLINE GROOMING
A DAD with links to a children’s charity sent a picture of his penis to who he believed was a 12-year-old girl.But the ‘girl’ was actually an undercover police officer acting as a decoy.
When Jonathan Rathmill’s house was raided by police, they seized two mobile phones.
On one of these devices, sick child sex abuse images were found of children believed to be as young as four and five years old.
Rathmill appeared before Liverpool Crown Court for sentencing on Wednesday after pleading guilty to making indecent photographs of a child, possessing prohibited images of a child, possessing indecent photographs of a child, and attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.
Prosecuting, Derek Jones said the offences came to light in November 2022 after an undercover police officer set up a profile on a chat website.
Rathmill, of Holywell Drive, Howley, contacted this profile and the pair had a brief chat before deciding to continue the conversation on Kik Messenger.
At this point, Rathmill did not know the age of the ‘girl’.
However, the decoy then began dropping ‘clues’ such as telling Rathmill that she had homework to do and that her mum wakes her up in the mornings.
Mr Jones said that Rathmill then told the decoy he was 33 to which she replied: “You will not want to talk to me now I bet because I am 12 years old.” The conversation then became sexual with Rathmill revealing he sleeps naked before alluding to performing sex acts on himself.
He then asked the ‘girl’ what she looked like before sending a photograph of his penis.
The conversation ended shortly after that.
Officers traced the defendant, who is now 35, from his IP address and attended his home address on November 23, 2022, where they seized his devices, including two mobile phones.
On one of these, he had visited a website where ‘lots of indecent images of children are stored’, the court heard.
He had also been searching for terms relating to child sex abuse.
And on another phone, he had been downloading images from this website.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that in total, Rathmill had eight category images – including of a boy believed to be aged between five and seven and a girl believed to be aged between four and six – four category B images, and 20 category C images.
He also had four prohibited images that were in cartoon form.
Rathmill has no previous convictions.
The court sentenced Rathmill to eight months in prison, suspended for 18 months, and ordered him to complete up to 35 days of rehabilitation activity, 250 hours of unpaid work, and to adhere to notification requirements for 10 years and a sexual harm prevention order for five years.
